Valentine's Day, Editing, & a Blog Party // February Recap

Last day of February? What even?! This is our short month though, so I'm gonna go with that since I legit have no idea where the last 28 days went. (Oh right. They were tirelessly poured into EDITING ACK.) *coughcough* 

// Life. //  

>> I had lots of random conversations this month, so I shall hereby toss all these at y'all with no rhyme or reason whatsoever. *wink* 

Mom: *leaving to go for a walk* 

Dad: Be careful. Watch out for bulldozers. 

(Apparently this is a concern...?) 

Tucker: *walks in with a hammer* *lays it in front of the fireplace*

Me: *eyes him suspiciously* Was your hammer cold? 

Tucker: *silly voice* Yes, sissy.

Me: *talking to myself in the mirror* Hey, my leg hurts. Stop laughing, it's not funny. You were too laughing. Okay, well a grin is practically a laugh. 

Me: This history lesson is entirely too long. 

Mom: How long is it?

Me: umm...like five pages. 

Mom: oh.

Me: *pats brothers arm* dude, what's in your shirt?

Tucker: *eyeing me suspiciously* my arm. 

Tucker: 38.5 tons

Me: see? I was practically right. 

Tucker: what did you say?

Me: 500 tons 

Mom: *laughing*

Tucker: *walks in and hugs Mom*

Mom: *kisses him* 

Tucker: YUCK!!

Dad: Did you make me cookies? 

Me: No, I made ME cookies. 

Dad: *sticks out tongue* 

Me: *thinking* no wonder I'm so mature... 

>> Our youth group had a Valentine's Day party on the prior Wednesday. All the kids made/brought sweets and goodies, and we served refreshments to the church family. It was a lot of fun! :) 

(On a writerly note...More than once that night, I caught myself calling/about to call this one kid 'Ryder'. Like, why brain?! #toomuchediting) 

>> Caught a random picture of my bro in mid-air. It looks like he's jumping off the roof, but he's not...right? 

>> Valentines Day rolled around which resulted in...a lot of jokes. Nazi jokes with two friends, single jokes within my writing group. I played a joke on a friend... *halo-emoji* But then I got a joke played on me by someone who didn't even know about that at the time, so I guess I got payed back. And I laughed terribly hard over all of it... XD 

>> Another joke that happened this month was related to a Goodreads poll and I suspicious answer by me. (If you saw that, no, I'm not engaged. And if you didn't, just ignore this.) 

>> I became I bit obsessed with taking pictures of feet. And shadows. *nods* 

>> I did homework while sitting in the dentist office waiting room and decided I totally had this life thing figured out. *nods* 

>> I took pictures of my pretty doggie. ^_^ 

>> I got told that I look like my Dad more than once. Which isn't exactly a bad thing, I reckon. ;) 

>> I learned how to make a pencil bun and IT WORKS Y'ALL. 

// Cherishing. // 

While still paying attention to cherishing my time by not wasting it on distractions such as social medias, I began consciously cherishing relationships this month. A main theme of Dandelion Dust is cherishing those you love, appreciating them while you can. We're not promised tomorrow. <3 

// Books. //  

I read 11 books this month -- 5 of which I finished in the last two days. :P 

Courageous Love by Susan K. Marlow -- 5 stars 

The Measure of a Heart by Janette Oke -- 5 stars 

Dandelion Dust by Faith Potts (yes, I'm totally counting editing toward this...but I did read it. ;)) 

Sarah, Plain & Tall by Patricia MacLachlan -- 5 stars 

Anna's Crossing by Suzanne Woods Fisher -- 4.5 stars 

Waltz into the Waves by Sarah Holman -- 5 stars 

The Newcomer by Suzanne Woods Fisher -- 4 stars -- Review here. 

The Silver Flower by Rebekah Eddy -- 3.5 stars 

Skylark by Patricia MacLachlan -- 5 stars 

Caleb's Story by Patricia MacLachlan -- 4 stars 

Luke -- 5 stars 

And I acquired eight delightful books this month. Thriftbooks, review copies, lovely signed books from indie-authors... Ya know, the usual. ;) 

Martin Hospitality by Abigayle Claire 

Courageous Love by Susan K. Marlow 

With Love, Wherever You Are by Dandi Daley Mackall 

Love Comes Softly by Janette Oke 

Millie's Remarkable Journey adapted by Kersten Hamilton 

When Calls the Heart by Janette Oke 

Homefront Hero by Allie Pleiter 

After the Dancing Days by Margaret Roskowski 

// Writing. //  

When sitting down to write this, I was going to say that I didn't write much this month. (Heh.) But as it turns out, my month's total word count comes to 16,737. O.O And nearly 15k of that went into Dandelion Dust (YUS ITS NEARLY 50k AHHH). 

January 15th – February 15th I joined in on a NaNo makeup hosted by Emily M. and Ivy Rose. It was a lot of fun and a ton of word wars. XD 

So yeah, I did a ton of editing this month. I completed my second draft/first edit and it's much better than the first (in my opinion ^_^). My critique partner read the first draft and she LIKED IT PEOPLE. <3 She compared it to a flower garden that need some weeds pulled...which totally may or may not have made my day. <3 On the day I finished the second draft, I placed my precious first draft copy in Mom's – very capable – hands. And she liked it toooo. *beams* 

Editing requires chocolate... :)

Editing has showed me many things, including how much I don't think about some things while writing. Like, I gave a hospital the working-title of St. Patrick's... ST. PATRICKS. *laughing* 

I'm now currently reading through my book for the fourth (or fifth?) time...and, to be perfectly honest, I'm getting a bit sick of those words. So I'm looking forward to place it in others' hands soon... (MONDAY. *shrieks*) 

All my editing notes...purposely blurred. ;) 

// Movies & Music. //  

So, yup. I saw some good movies this month. A December Bride (in February, how comical) was a cute hallmark movie starring Daniel Lissing (Jack to you WCTH fans) so that was an obvious win. 

Priceless was a great movie, starring one of the Smallbone brothers from for King & Country. (Joel, I think? Can't keep the names straight...) Harsh but real, and I really enjoyed it. ^_^ 

Oh look. Faith got a new journal. Whoops, doesn't belong in this section... :P 

Re-watches included the three Sarah Plain and Tall movies and season three of When Calls the Heart. XD 

Also, I really love this song by Tenth Avenue North. Go listen to the epic-ness! :D 

// Blogging. // 

A major highlight in blogging this month, for me anywho, was the delightfully amazing When Calls the Heart blog party I co-hosted with my friend Rebekah!! :D Have fun hunting through my archives if you missed any of that. 

Favorite Posts... 

>> Rachael posted about editing and gave me the initiative to persevere until the end of draft #2 

>> Emma wrote about prayer in her amazingly-worded way and touched my heart 

>> Abi posted 50 spoiler-free facts from her book which I absolutely adored ^_^

>> Jonathan's post "When All You Want is to Inspire" was super relatable 

>> Jesseca wrote about vulnerability and letting people see your flaws and I just <3 <3 

>> Bethany gave some insight on faith leading to understand which I really enjoyed 

>> And of course all the WCTH posts by RebekahA., Lauren, and Micaiah were fabulous. :D 

// Goals. // 

>> Complete the first (and possible second) edit of Dandelion Dust.    Yup, both! 

>> Read 12+ books.     Close. XD 

>> Read a minimum of 15 chapters during alpha-reading.      Uhh...I think I read three? *hides* Better next month I hope... 

>> Keep up the Chosen Vessels posting schedule of quality posts every Saturday + book reviews throughout the weeks.             Did it! One book review, two quality posts, and the monthly SiC chat. :) 

March Goals. 

>> Send Dandelion Dust to beta-readers (and try not to die in the process). 

>> Catch up on emails (AKA give my inbox some love). 

>> Get caught up and stay caught up on my current two alpha-reading projects. 

>> Read 12 books. 

>> Write 10k in various projects. 

>> Keep up my Chosen Vessels posting schedule. 

Hope y'all enjoyed! How was your month? :D 

~Faith